2024: A year in KUOW's arts and pop culture
It wasn't just film reviews and arguments about whether or not "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie. KUOW covered a lot of arts, a lot of culture, and bit of pop culture in 2024.
Take a journey through the year's reporting on aspects of Seattle and the Northwest that speak to the region's thriving arts scenes and defining culture.
Music and dancing
The Northwest has a fervent surf rock scene that gathers each year at Surf X Surfwest. The surf rock music fest happens over a weekend at Darrell's Tavern in Shoreline each summer and boasts a lineup of bands (both local and international) on two stages. "It's a lot of people who are playing the genre because they just love the feeling of it," said Hiro Yamamoto with Bellingham's Stereo Donkey, and also a founding member of Soundgarden. "It's a friendly scene, and that's part of the DIY thing, too. It kind of fits with the laid back sort of crowd. We're just hanging out, having fun."
The Seattle Fandango Project has been up and running for years, but it was interrupted during the pandemic. Fandango is a form of Spanish / Portuguese folk music and dance. As RadioActive's Vivi Cardenas-Habell reported, it was important to bring the project back in 2024 as it wasn't just about the music. It was also about community.
A Seattle b-boy helped select the first breakdancers to represent the USA at the Olympics. It all happened at the 2024 Red Bull Lords of the Floor breakdance competition at WAMU Theater. This was the first time this breakdancing event had been held in Seattle since 2002. Obviously, since then, the local breakdancing scene did not fade away.
NW beauty and environment
Shoreline has a garden that it couldn't keep a secret any longer. Funny thing was that this garden didn't start out as a secret. It was once featured in magazines and TV shows. After Joe Ching moved to Seattle to become Canlis' first head chef in the 1950s, he started a garden with his wife, Jennie, at their Shoreline home. It became so impressive, they offered tours to passersby. But in recent years, with the Chings absent, it became overgrown and lost its luster. But when one neighborhood walker looked closer, she could tell there was more than meets the eye. There was history.
There are a lot of golden chain trees in Seattle, and their seeds are poisonous. That's the kind of information Taha Ebrahimi learned while writing the book on Seattle street trees. What started as a project to update and correct Seattle's street tree database evolved into the book “Street Trees of Seattle," which answers the question: Why is that tree here?
Nerds, geeks, and gamers, oh my!
Our region loves cons. We got Emerald City Comic Con, PAX West, even CybFest, just for Transformers fans. This year, we learned that PAX West, among the world's largest video game conventions, was all started because of a misunderstanding. Also, the tens of thousands of fans who flood into Seattle's Emerald City Comic Con each year add up to $26.5 million in estimated local economic impacts. KUOW's Katie Campbell learned why on her first trip to ECCC, which she described as an "overwhelming" experience.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs also goes by the name "Happy Tracker Meow Meow." That's his name when playing Dungeons and Dragons. He's a bard for the Tabaxi college of lore. He knows the benefits of a game like D&D, which is produced locally by Wizards of the Coast in Renton. That's why he struck a deal with Wizards to get copies of D&D in libraries across the state. And the effort didn't stop there.
Animals running free
When zebras escaped a trailer in North Bend, they quickly became local legends, particularly one named Sugar. While the others were apprehended, Sugar was on the loose for weeks. A folk song was written about it. Part of the attraction could have been how nobody could get the facts straight in the beginning. At first, it was reported that a stallion escaped (which led to hopes of some zorses resulting from the incident). Then we found out it was actually a "she-bra." Suring its time on the lamb, the zebra chased some folks. Eventually, Sugar was caught with the help of a rodeo clown and some bread.
Seattle has little houses for feral cats. It's part of an effort by the Alley Cat Project. That's a local nonprofit that likes to engage in TNR: trap, neuter, return. They feed and house the cats, and also neuter a few to address feral overpopulation.
Sports
Rat City Roller Derby celebrated its 20th year in 2024. This DIY sport has become a cult sensation locally, but it hasn't always rolled along so smoothly. It was an effort to build it into what it is today.
The Olympus Rally takes place in Shelton, Wash. each year. This two-day rally car race has regional and national stakes. That's what KUOW's Katie Campbell learned when she volunteered to help organize the adrenaline-filled weekend of revving through rural backroads.
The Seattle Steelheads baseball team played its first game at Sick's Stadium on June 1, 1946. They didn't play in 1947. The Steelheads were Seattle's team in the West Coast Negro League that emerged after WWII. It's a little-known piece of Seattle history that Seattle Now shined a light on this year. While they had a good start in '46, Jackie Robinson made headlines in '47 as the first Black baseball player in the Major League, ending baseball segregation.
Seattle's youth are learning conflict management skills through an old sport — boxing. One effort is Creative Justice which operates out of the Central District’s Washington Hall. Another is SeaMar Youth Boxing Club in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood . The idea is to counter youth violence, and help high-risk kids, in a structured way.
Imbibe vibes
These Seattle-area brewers want to change beer's bro image. Ruby de Luna reported about a growing number of women in Seattle that aim to reclaim the heritage of brewing. Beer is a male-dominated industry, but it wasn't always that way. And in the Northwest, there are a lot of women who brought us the beer we know and love.
Rainier Beer isn't brewed locally anymore, but that hasn't stopped local fervor for it. An indie documentary all about Rainier Beer's advertising and local pride swept through film festivals and local theaters this year. "Rainier: A Beer Odyssey," all started at a Tacoma bar that had a small corner featuring Rainier memorabilia. Part of that display was a video of old commercials, which became a major attraction. That led two brothers on a journey through history. They ended up preserving old Rainier footage and producing this movie.
For a time in 2024, a Seattleite could get a beer made with dragon fruit or Sichuan peppercorns. That was some of the options brewed up Lucky Envelope Brewing for the Lunar New Year holiday. The brewery like to make beer with some Chinese culture, and make it about family and community.
There are those in town who aren't so keen on alcohol. That's why there is a thriving non-alcoholic scene around Seattle. But don't call these drinks "mocktails." They're actually quite a but fancier than that. As Seattle Times food writer Tan Vinh told Seattle Now: "'Mocktail' is like a four-letter word now ... 10 years ago, you just said mocktail, whatever, and you wanted a virgin cocktail. It has become so popular, it is now considered an art and a craft." So instead of imitating alcoholic drinks, these offerings are a whole new category.
Foodie
Seattle's popular FOB Sushi closed down after some harsh online backlash. A foodie influencer came through town and recorded their experience at FOB. A commenter said they thought they saw a worm in the video and things spiraled from there. There likely was never a worm, but the internet is the internet and people went a bit nuts. FOB Sushi eventually reopened. In fact, the local health department did an inspection and gave them the same rating they have always had — "excellent."
When a celebrity chef tried to trademark "chile crunch", a variation on the spelling of the condiment chili crunch, it caused quite an uproar among foodies. For those who aren't as familiar with chili crunch, you've likely seen it around your average Chinese restaurant. Trying to trademark chili crunch is like someone trying to trademark ketchup or mustard. Then the celebrity started sending cease and desist order to chili crunch proprietors, ordering them to stop using the term, one Seattle cookbook author decided to push back in their own way.
Film
When Lily Gladstone became the first Native American actress to be nominated for an Oscar this year, folks around Mountlake Terrace got excited. Gladstone attended Mountlake Terrace High School. Teachers, classmates, and others packed into the school's auditorium for an Oscar party. Gladstone didn't take home the award, however. It wasn't the only highlight for Gladstone this year. She was also executive producer and narrator on the documentary "Bring Them Home." The film is about the decades-long effort to reintroduce buffalo to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. It was screened at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Scarecrow Video is one of the last video rental stores standing, and Seattle almost lost it this year. The shop is now a nonprofit that preserves physical media. It needed to raise $1.8 million this year to keep operating. It was able secure the funds it needed to stay open for the next two years.
History
When Seattle Gay News celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, it also started a whole new chapter. The newspaper is now under new management following the death of its longtime and influential editor and publisher. The paper is now on a path to modernize with online reporting and more.
A statue of Billy Frank Jr. was unveiled at the capitol in Olympia this year. It's model for a much larger version that will be placed at the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. in 2025. A statue of settler Marcus Whitman previously stood for Washington state in the national hall, but an effort to replace him began a few years ago, and Frank was selected to represent the state. Frank's statue will be the first Native American to be featured in the hall, and the statue's sculpture, Hai Ying Wu, will be the first Chinese-American artist to have their work displayed there.
